Tororo (the Japanese yam, Dioscorea opposita)

Posted on May 5, 2013 in Home Meals | 0 comments

The other day, it was 20 c degrees. Yes, it’s hot for May! After 4 days, it was -6°C. And now (May 4th) it’s 20°C again! Harsh weather!
At our home, the temperature is supposed to be maintained at 21.5°C all the time, but when the temperature outside goes up so suddenly, the gadget doesn’t work accurately and our basement suite goes down to about 18-19°C. It’s been like this for the last few days, and my hubby can’t recover from his cold because it’s kind of chilly down here. We say staying cold is the origin of all sickness, in Japanese. We miss the Sun! (Even thought it’s right out there!)

IMG_3322
The other day, Ms K gave us a nice piece of fruit tart all hand-made! Thank you so much! It was so beautiful and delicious. We were so impressed when we found out the base was also baked by her!

 

I’d like to talk about tororo. I just bought it here in Canada for the first time. It was $5.93 for 1 kg. A bit expensive?

I love tororo and the yamakake gunkan (tuna sushi and tororo) is one of my favorite sushi dishes.
We saw it sometimes in HK, but we rarely see it in Canada. So I really missed it.

In HK, when I saw tororo on the menu, I had to order one. The item I liked the most was Neva-neva Don at a restaurant at the Japanese Club. Neva-neva means slimy-slimy. ^^ It was a dish of tororo, natto and  molokheiya over a bed of rice. All neva-neva! So healthy and delicious! I want to eat it now….

Examples of how to eat tororo:
e33df6e4 sLx7E
I usually ate it at my parents’ or at restaurants and I’ve never really bought some myself and served it. It should be served just grated, I imagined. But wait. It’s a potato and it should be cooked. Can I eat it raw? Its name is Nagaimo (long potatos) or Yamaimo (mountain potatoes), it must be a potato but maybe it could belong to some radish!? Then it can be eaten raw. So I checked. Yes, it was a potato (as it claims)! You can cook it, but we can eat it raw. Great! It must be a good food for raw food eaters as well!

I grated it and put it on somen. Craving it for a long time makes it even more delicious!

IMG_3335

It’s a potato, so it’s a carbo. But it stimulates the digestion process and is good for stamina, it is used for Chinese traditional medicine as well. This sliminess is called mucin and it is good for activating your cells/blood stream, anti-aging, your skin, causing a quick recovery, loosening up constipation! Sounds all good!
Reference: J-Medical

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *